


Seasons

by starlight_and_seafire



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, POV Rey (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-11 01:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15304404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_and_seafire/pseuds/starlight_and_seafire
Summary: So much can change in a year.





	1. Fall

The first thing they do is plot out a course that keeps them flush in hyperfuel.

Leia has a few hidden emergency bank accounts that’ll allow them to get enough fuel for a handful of jumps, before they can find a place to set down and set up a base. Maybe then they’ll have time to breath, to start to heal, to recover.

In the meantime, they only stop long enough to meet with a few contacts, get a few more resources, more fuel, and most importantly, some more food. They’ve already had to start rationing their supplies.

They’ve just made their third stop to let the engineers and mechanics top off their fuel and look over their ship. Their contact, a public official on the little backwater planet, gives them access codes for them to get their hands on more credits, but there’s no time to spend those credits in the little black market that’s formed in the town they’ve landed in. Their contact looks over his shoulder the entire time, scared of the possible spies and eavesdroppers eager for a reward from the First Order, while he hands them the information. He shoos them off his planet, away from his people, as fast as possible. They return to the Falcon and punch it out of there as fast as they can.

Once the evening meal has passed, nothing more than a few bites of a protein sludge to fill their bellies till their next meal tomorrow, people begin to wander off to find a place to rest, maybe even to sleep if they’re lucky enough, until the ship’s chronometer tells them it’s time to wake again.

Rey sits in cockpit of the Falcon, chatting quietly with Chewie, until Leia walks in and glances sadly around. Rey takes that as her cue to pass the controls to her co-pilot, while she looks for something else to do. As she passes by Leia however, she feels a gentle hand reach out and squeeze her shoulder. A look passes between the two, but she doesn’t know what to say. This is a little beyond her skill set, so she just gives her a soft smile in return and leaves.

When she walks out, she doesn’t have a plan in mind, so she just turns down hallway after hallway, until she turns one corner and almost trips over a set of outstretched legs.

She sees Finn first before she recognizes Poe sitting next to him. Finn’s face brightens when he sees her, and she’s sure her face mirrors his.

“Rey! What you up to? C’mon, join the party,” Finn says, patting the floor to indicate that she should sit next to them.

She glances around briefly, before sending a wry grin Finn’s way. “Not really what I imagined a party to be like.” There’s no place for her to sit next to Finn, as he’s near the edge of the wall that turns into the next hallway, so she gingerly steps over their legs and slides down the wall until she’s sitting next to Poe.

“Well, it’s not a party per se …” Finn starts.

“Bit of pity party though,” Poe breaks in with a small grin, bumping his shoulder with Finn’s.

“Maybe that,” Finn says. “We’re still kinda hungry …”

“Kinda?”

“Hush, Poe. So, we’re very hungry, and then Poe was telling me about his home, and he mentioned something about a koyo melon. And since I apparently can’t stop thinking about food anyway, I’m now making him tell me about all sorts of food he grew up with. You should hear some of it, Rey, I’ve never even heard half of them.” Finn’s stomach takes that moment to growl, loudly, and they all laugh at the noise, even though it’s exactly what they’re all feeling at the moment.

Once the laughter fades away though, Rey can’t help but express her confusion. “If you two are hungry, why are you talking about food?”

Finn looks surprised, but then contemplative. “I don’t know. Like I said, it’s kinda hard to stop thinking about it. So once I got him started talking about food, I just wanted him to keep going.”

Poe tilts his head to the side in thought. “I think it’s just on our mind. We’re hungry, and can’t really ignore the hunger, so we just keep thinking, and talking, about food, I guess..”

Rey hums in thought, but she still doesn’t understand. “Why don’t you just ignore it though?”

“Ignore what?” Finn asks. “How hungry I am? You just heard my stomach, can’t really ignore that.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Poe asks, his gaze turning from Finn towards Rey.

Rey shrugs and thinks for a minute. “Sure, I guess. Yeah. But I just ignore it.”

Rey watches as Finn’s face twists with confusion. “How can you just ignore it? I can’t stop thinking about food, like those koyo melons Poe was talking about, or the smoked meat, or the fresh vegetables, or …” and he’s cut off once more when his stomach growls again, and he groans as he places his hands on top of his stomach and leans his head back against the wall.

“Practice, I guess.” And Rey knows she has more practice at being hungry than them, going days at a time with little to no food, having to dive into her emergency stockpile of half and quarter portions when the weather on Jakku turns too brutal to venture outside and scavenge. She knows what it’s like on those even-worse days, when she knows she has to build her emergency stockpile back up before the next time things go south, but when she’s still so hungry that it’s a punishing effort just to hold back from eating all the portions she had earned that day.

Poe’s gaze turns towards her again, this time more contemplative than before. Even if he hasn’t known hunger like she has, his expression seems understanding. Finn grunts and shakes his head. Finn may have eaten nothing but bland, carefully portioned meals in the First Order, but he never really had to face the uncertainty of where his next meal came from, of facing the life and death effort every day to obtain enough nutrients to survive. Neither of them has. Poe’s look may say that he knows what she is saying, but at the same time, he doesn’t really know. At least he’s not looking at her with pity. She straightens her shoulders and looks them both straight on.

“See? Nothing good about Jakku,” Finn says, and she can’t help but laugh at the face he’s pulled.

“No, that place was pretty much a hellhole. But there were some good parts.”

Finn looks at her in disbelief. “Really, like what?”

She pauses, takes a moment to wonder what she should say, if she even wants to allow them this look inside. Although time doesn’t pass the same way in hyperspace as it does planetside, where you can see time pass in the movement of the sun and stars, the light and dark, people going about their business and returning home, it just feels late at night here. The ship’s lighting has dimmed somewhat to account for this passing of time, as people head to their sleep cycles, and the business of the day has slowed down somewhat. She feels just sleepy enough, just comfortable enough, that she starts talking.

She tells them how sometimes a trader would come through and she’d watch them at the market and make up stories about them, wondering at their lives in the galaxy beyond. She tells them about how she found a flight sim one time, scavenged up enough components to build a computer and how she taught herself to pilot. She tells them about the pilot doll she made and the pilot helmet she found, and what she imagined Dosmit Raeh was like, and how she pretended she was a pilot too. She tells them how she made her little walker a home, with a few items she recovered from a downed ship filling a few of its corners. And she tells them of the little dessert flower she had found, dried out and set so carefully on a table, so she’d be able to look at it and remember that sometimes even beautiful things can grow on Jakku, how sometimes life in the dessert can turn into something good.

They’re both watching her closely at the end of her story, and Rey blushes, not used to the scrutiny, even if she doesn’t feel particularly embarrassed. She doesn’t know exactly why she shared this much about herself, hasn’t really had an opportunity to talk like this with anyone else before. But it felt comfortable. Safe, even.

A few minutes later, they’re all yawning, eyes drooping as time continues to push forward. Poe stands first, his back cracking as he stretches, and Finn follows in short order. She’s about to scramble to her feet, when Poe reaches out a hand to her. She’s briefly reminded of that moment on Jakku, where Finn grabbed her hand, and thinks if that moment led her here, to the Falcon, to the Resistance and to her new friends, then there’s just another reason that Jakku wasn’t so bad. She takes Poe’s hand and lets him help pull her to her feet.

\--

After another half a dozen jumps through hyperspace, and as many planetside stops where they haggle for food and supplies and support, they set down in the middle of an almost barren wilderness with only the wall of a cliff to hide from view. It’s not a place to set up base, the atmosphere not conducive to long term survival of the humanoids of their group, but it is perfect for one thing.

The Falcon has been stopped for half an hour, maybe a bit more, when the screaming shockwave of ships breaking the atmosphere reaches their ears. A few minutes later, a handful of x-wings land in the clearing around them.

Rey is standing near the head of the group, next to Leia, with Poe and Rose and Finn huddled nearby. She watches the canopies of the ships pop open, and as soon as the first head pops into view, Poe lets out a whoop of joy and takes off like a shot. She doesn’t know who these people are that come jumping out of the ship, but Poe immediately engulfs them in hugs and they hug him back just as eagerly.

The group quickly comes over to greet Leia, waving hellos over their shoulders to others as they speak with her. One of the men even leans over to shake Finn’s hand briefly. She watches as their happy expressions morph into ones of shock and sadness, as they take in just how few of their number remain.

Her confusion over who these people are lasts only a minute, however. Poe tells her about the infamous Black Squadron, pride lacing his voice, as he introduces them to her, the Jedi. But just as quick as the introduction went, it ends, as the group, along with Poe, walks away from the crowd and into the Falcon for a debrief.

Soon, they are all filing onto the Falcon again, except for a few of the other pilots who head towards the x-wings. Black Squadron remains on the Falcon, still in their debrief, as the ship takes off once again, heading towards a new set of coordinates.

The routine starts over again, but this time she’s alone. She watches as Finn follows Rose around while Rose makes repairs. She watches as they talk, and banter, gently knocking into each other’s shoulders or touching each other’s arms. She sees how Finn hovers, watches as he gets flustered when Rose calls him on it. Rose promises him that’s she doing better but teases him about following her around even as she tugs him towards her again once he catches on and pretends to move away from her.

She’s happy for her friend. She really is. But the loneliness lingers when she walks into the galley, and sees the other member of her group, the one with the seemingly constant smile and good humor - except for those times she would catch him alone and something appears a bit haunted behind his eyes - one who has started to become as much an important part of her life as Finn and Leia.

She sees him in the middle of a circle, talking and laughing with the members of Black Squadron. She doesn’t know exactly why she feels so lonely right now, or what other mix of emotions seem to be taking up shop in the center of her chest, but she turns and walks right back out before anyone even notices her.

She chastises herself. It’s not like she’s not used to loneliness. She’s had years to perfect that skill. She understands why Finn is distracted though. She just doesn’t understand why it also hurts that Poe is too busy for her too.

\--

The next day they land on a new planet. She’s helping the group haul supplies onto the Falcon when she notices Poe walking her way with two canteens of water in his hands.

She makes herself busy elsewhere.

\--

Before they even leave the planet, Poe and two of the other pilots she was introduced to, Snap and Kare, have taken off in the x-wings. She doesn’t know where to, or when they’ll be back.

\--

Two weeks have passed when they make a quick detour to stop on a planet in the dead of night, the last stop before they head to the planet they intend on setting up a new base on. It’ll be cold, and inhospitable, but it’s hidden away in the Outer Rim, Leia says, and the First Order shouldn’t have any way to know its location.

The three x-wings are waiting for them when they land, the moonlight glinting off the ships canopies, and she watches their pilots file back in to the Falcon to debrief with Leia. They’re all carrying small bags with them, and she notices a few people run back out to the x-wings to unload whatever else they’ve brought back with them. She sees that Snap seems to be sunburned a bit, his cheeks and nose bright red. Poe walks behind him, and when he sees her, he smiles brightly and raises his hand to wave at her.

She can’t help but return the wave, and the smile, though she knows hers probably isn’t as bright as his. She’s not sure that’s even possible.

She doesn’t know how long the debrief will last, but they take off again, and are finally travelling to their new base. She can feel the eagerness, and the uncertainty, of the members onboard, as they await their new home. But the feelings are starting to fade somewhat, as the lights dim once more and people file to the bunks, or the galley benches, or the corridors off the beaten path to get a few minutes sleep.

She sits in the cockpit of the Falcon with Finn, listening to him wonder what their new base would be like, before he once more started extolling Rose’s many virtues. Eventually he lets out a jaw-cracking yawn and heads off to find Rose and maybe a place to get some sleep.

She’s curled up in the pilot’s seat, watching the blurred stars of hyperspace flash by, when she feels a presence behind her. She thinks she’d recognize that force signature anywhere. It’s as clear to her as Finn’s or Leia’s or Chewie’s by now.

“Hi, Poe,” she says, without even turning around.

“How did you know it was me?” He moves more fully into the cockpit then, and stands next to the co-pilot’s seat, a rucksack in his hand.

She shrugs at his question. “I just knew.” When he doesn’t make a move to sit down, she raises an eyebrow at him. He just glances between her and the seat.

She’s suddenly hit with understanding and laughs. “You can sit, you know. I’m pretty sure Chewie won’t rip out your arms just for sitting down.”

Poe’s face absolutely lights up, and he moves quickly to sit down, as if worried she might take back the permission she just gave him. He gently places the bag on the floor, and laughs with obvious glee as he gets comfortable in the seat.

If his force signature wasn’t bright enough before, it’s absolutely blinding now. She knows that feeling, an absolute mirrored reflection of the first time she sat in the Falcon’s pilots seat, once she knew what the ship was.

“Hey, that Wookie is huge, and I’m not risking it. If he says anything, I’m blaming you,” he says, pointing a finger at her, clearly teasing.

She revels in the teasing, even if she wouldn’t say so. It’s still so new to her. Even having been on this ship in close proximity with the others for weeks now, most of the others onboard don’t treat her nearly the same. They still stay a bit further back, a little too in awe of the Jedi who had helped draw the tie fighters away at Crait, and lifted the rocks, and brought them all onboard the legendary ship to take them to safety.

She thinks maybe that’s why she missed Poe when he spent so much time with Black Squadron when they had returned. She missed the way he talked to her, and teased her, and made her feel like she belonged, even if she also recognized that in some moments he looked at her with just as much awe in his eyes as the rest of them did. But he made her feel like a part of something, like she was important, like she was someone who deserved to be known in her own right, not just as the Jedi, but as Rey.

She liked that.

Once he got past his awe (or at least the first, practically brutal impact of astonishment at being allowed to sit in the co-pilot’s seat, she saw how his eyes kept returning to the controls, roamed over all the little modifications that had been made in there), they settled into their usual banter quickly. She hadn’t realized just how quickly that something like that could have developed, the conversation proceeding lightening quick with frequent breaks for laughter, but now that he’s returned, and he’s not distracted by the return of his squad, she realizes how much she had missed it.

When his eyes darted to the rucksack for the umpteenth time, she couldn’t help it anymore. “What’s in the bag?”

His eyes widened almost comically. “How did you know I was thinking about that?”

She wanted to laugh, but there was just a hint of fear behind his eyes. “You keep looking at it.” She paused briefly, remembering how they had become “torture buddies” early on into their acquaintance, upon discovering they had both been tortured by Kylo Ren. “I’m not reading your mind or anything. I wouldn’t do that, even if I could.”

He nods, while waving away her explanation. “No, I know you wouldn’t do anything like that. I just wondered how you knew.”

“You’re not exactly subtle.”

He sighs. “No, I’m usually not. I’ve been told it’s not really my strong suit,” he replies, a wry grin on his face.

She watches as he leans over, picking up the bag and placing it in his lap. With one last look to her, he opens it, and reaches in. The first thing that comes out is a scuffed-up helmet, bleached by the sun. The well-worn metal is one she recognizes immediately, and she can’t help but reach out eagerly when Poe hands it to her.

“My flight helmet! You went to Jakku?” She asks, running her fingers over the shape of it as she held it close. She never thought she’d again see the flight helmet she’d once worn, when she pretended to go on adventures along with the fighter pilot doll she had created. She felt the smile practically overtake her face and when she glanced up at Poe, he averted his eyes quickly before glancing back down at the bag to dig around some more.

“We went to meet a contact there, and there was a little extra time to take a detour. BB showed me where to go,” he said, as he pulled out the next item.

There was her doll that she had created using the uniform she recovered from a cargo container. She grabbed it from him and placed it gently into her lap next to the helmet.

Before she could say anything, he was pulling out the nightbloomer from her AT-AT, still sitting in its little cup. Its leaves were almost completely withered now, but still the plant persisted.

She stared at it, a little unsure what to say. Although this stuff was hers, it still felt like Poe was giving her a gift. She hadn’t had too many of those in her life.

Her eyes darted between the nightbloomer and Poe.

“Poe,” she said, pausing to lick her suddenly dry lips. “I don’t understand. Why?”

Poe’s cheeks reddened slightly, as he ran his free hand through his hair, his other hand still holding onto the cup containing the nightbloomer. “Like I said, we had some free time. And BB can’t stop talking about hero-Rey who saved him on Jakku, and then you saved us all, and I thought it was a way to say thank you, I guess? And you did this all without asking us for anything really, and you had to leave behind your home, and I’m sorry that this is all I could find, but the place looked like it had been picked through, so …”

He was babbling, so she cut him off, grinning as his face reddened even further when he finally met her eyes.

“Poe. Thank you.” She shook her head, looking down at the items in her lap once more, before reaching out and taking the nightbloomer from him. She stroked a finger along one of its withered leaves. She remembered telling him and Finn about what she had left behind on Jakku, back before she and Finn had run off and fell in with the Resistance. She remembered telling them that, but it still struck her, the feeling still intense and new, that someone had listened to her, and paid attention to her, not just as the Jedi, but as someone who was more than just her skill with the Force. “This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten.”

She looked up at him then, and she thought his smile might actually have been brighter than the Jakku sun itself.


	2. Winter

She thinks if she shivers any harder that she might just break a bone.

She darts across the yard to get into the building across from the barracks that houses the mess hall, trying to run quickly despite being hunched over with her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her huge parka. Once she clears the doorway, she stomps her feet on the ground, trying to rid herself of the clumps of snow sticking to her boots. She scowls down at the mess now on the floor and the squeak the wet soles of her shoes make while she walks.

She’s still scowling as she enters the mess and plops down at a table across from Finn and Poe. Finn is shoving at Poe’s shoulder, both men laughing hard at some joke that she’s apparently just missed. When they finally glance at her, their laughter fades away quickly.

“What’s happened to you?” Finn talks first, his face concerned, his tone tentative.

Her body takes one last opportunity to send a strong shiver racing down her spine, her body automatically contorting in on itself. She lets herself scowl a little deeper, before straightening herself out again.

“It’s too cold! And who came up with the bright idea to have the buildings so far from each other? Idiots, whoever it was.”

“Oh c’mon, it’s not that bad, you’ll get used to it,” Finn says, trailing off when she shoots a glare his way.

“Of course you can say that, you’ve spent time in the snow before. Desert child, remember?” She doesn’t miss Jakku, not really, not when she has so much here, Finn, and Poe, and Rose and BB8 and Leia. There’s food, and enough of it, so that she doesn’t feel her stomach turning in on itself from hunger anymore, not unless she forgets to eat, which is still more often than she’d care to admit. But no one lets her forget for too long, and then she’s again reminded of the good people surrounding herself here, so really, there’s no good reason to miss Jakku.

But she misses the heat, the warmth that seeped into her skin and kept her warm even into the cooler overnight hours. And honestly, she knows that more often than not she would get too hot, the heat pressing down upon her much too heavily. But right now, at least, she can only think of it as a pleasant heat that melted right down into her bones.

“He’s right though,” Poe said, a soft grin on his face, and she’s surprised at her sudden distraction, and a little annoyed with herself at the same time. She tries not to think too much about her reaction to something so small, that little smile and the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, but she can feel a bit of warmth bloom on her cheeks, and she can only hope that the bite of the cold has kept her cheeks somewhat flushed.

“See! He agrees with me! Thanks, man!” Finn laughs, and reaches a hand up for a high five, and Poe joins in the laughter while he offers his own hand up.

“Seriously, though. It just takes some time. I grew up in a tropical climate, and then for a while I was stationed on a planet where I could see glaciers from my window. Sometimes it felt like I’d never be warm again,” he said, looking towards Rey again, before sliding his mug towards her.

She looks down at it, the mug filled with a dark liquid, steam rising off it. She leans over it and sniffs lightly, before reluctantly pulling her hands out of her pockets. She lets out a sigh of relief as her fingers curl around the mug, letting them rest there as she begins to feel the warmth seep into her skin.

Poe grins when she lets out the sigh, before speaking again. “Besides, the snow can be fun.”

“Fun? Man, you can get used to the cold, but the snow and slush just gets everywhere. I wouldn’t say it’s fun.”

“But think about the possibilities! I know there aren’t any hills around here to go sledding, but you can build a snowman,” and at that an irritated beep gets thrown his way from the little round droid sitting by his feet, “or build a snow droid who just happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to a certain droid.” He winks down at the droid. “And then there’s always a good old fashioned snow ball fight.”

Rey looks at Finn, and the look he sends back to her must bear an uncanny resemblance to her own face, as Poe looks between them, shakes his head and laughs. And when he stands and pulls Finn up alongside him, she’s can’t help but follow. She has no idea what he means really, with the exception of the sledding even though she’s never done it in anything but the sand, but she trusts him. He’s grinning and he’s making Finn laugh, and she can’t help but smile back at him when he looks back at her, too.

She’s a little lost in her thoughts, so she barely notices them exiting the mess hall and heading outside, not until the cold air bites at her cheeks and she has to shove her hands back into her pockets again. BB8 trundles past her, its heavy spherical body dipping down into the snow a bit, until it’s next to Poe again. Poe circles around a small area for a moment, assessing the snow cover, until he drops to his knees. Rey watches as he starts pushing snow together, rolling it in his hands. She thinks he’s a little crazy for willingly kneeling in the snow, thinks about how cold his hands and knees must be, even though he seems to be ignoring it in favor of concentrating on the little ball he’s making, eyebrows furrowed together as he continues to build it larger and larger.

Finn kneels down next to him, and Poe looks over his shoulder at her and raises an eyebrow. “Well?”

“Well, what?” She asks. She knows he wants her to help do whatever it is he’s doing, but she’s trying to postpone the inevitable chill that’s going to sink into her skin and bones once she sits in the snow.

Poe looks like he’s going to respond, his mouth just beginning to open, but he doesn’t get a chance to say anything before BB8 beeps a few words. Poe’s mouth shuts, and his lips quirk up a fraction at BB’s response. She can’t seem to help her eyes dropping down to the turn of his lips for a fraction of a second, before she gives herself a little mental shake and sits next to him. She has no idea why she did that, so she concentrates on the snow in front of her instead.

Both she and Finn watch Poe as he pushes and pulls the snow, and in a few minutes the three of them have made a large globe and are working on a smaller one. This time they make it a little less round, with a straighter bottom edge. Together, the three of them lift it to rest on the larger circle. Poe draws a few circles and lines into the top portion with his finger, and she runs off to a barren tree near the corner of the field they’re in, and pulls off a small stick before returning to the group.

“There we go,” she says, placing the stick on top of the snow-made figure.

BB-8 makes a loud, pleased sound, his head cocked to the side, its photoreceptor trained on its snowy, life-sized counterpart.

Finn leans over and pats the droid on its head, before straightening back up. “I can barely tell the difference between you two,” he says, laughing. “Glad you’ve got the bright orange – HEY!” His sentence cuts off suddenly, and just as she turns to see Finn wiping snow off his face, another ball of snow hits her square on her shoulder.

She doesn’t say anything, just looks down and brushes the remnants of the snow off her shoulder. Poe hadn’t exactly explained the concept of a snow ball fight to them earlier, but after working with the snow moments before, it’s pretty easy to figure out just what he meant. She exchanges a quick look with Finn, and after he nods back at her, they slowly turn back towards Poe, who’s practically doubled over, his hands resting of his knees as he laughs. Finally, he looks up again, notices their faces, and his laughter fades as she and Finn bend over in unison.

“Hey, now that I’ve shown you just what a snow ball is, that doesn’t mean –“ and before he can finish, a snowball hits him on the side of his head, the fine, powdery snow catching in his hair. Poe looks at Finn, in what she would think of as shock except for the slight twitch of a lip upwards, and he turns to look at her, eyes still wide.

Her arm starts cocking back, but he turns and starts running, shouting something over his shoulder, so she takes off after him. She can faintly hear Finn following along behind her. Once she’s managed to gain a bit of ground on Poe, she plants her feet, brings her arm back, and unleashes the snowball with a loud cry. It hits Poe right in the center of his back, causing him to stumble forward a bit. He stops and turns to face them again. A second later, another snowball hits him, this time square in the chest.

She reaches her hand up and to the side. A moment later, Finn’s hand smacks against her own.

“Now, this is just unfair, two against one,” and he’s not even done speaking when both she and Finn are bending over once again to scoop up more snow. This time he doesn’t turn and run, instead leaning down to pack together his own handful before darting to the side as she unleashes her first volley.

They keep on like this for a few minutes, zig zagging across the ground as they throw snow at each other. Eventually she and Finn turn against each other, snow flying, and it isn’t until Finn gets a handful of snow down the back of Poe’s jacket and shirt that he surrenders, but not before yelling and doing a very energetic dance while trying to pull the fabric away from his skin.

Once Poe finishes grumbling unfair tactics, pointing a finger at Finn and promising revenge (who gives a smirk and a _bring it on_ gesture in return) they start to head back inside. She’s breathless with laughter, and almost, _almost_ warm, despite the practically ever present chill to her skin these days.

“So, snow. Not as bad as you had thought, right?”

She turns to look at Poe, and her eyes go straight to the bright flush in his cheeks.

“No, I guess it has its good side,” she says, but as he starts to gloat, she cuts him off. “One or two good things, that’s it.” She laughs at his jokingly offended stare.

“Just one or two, c’mon now!”

“It was fun. And now BB8 has another friend,” she says, glancing over at the droid who is still in front of his snow-clone, “but it doesn’t hold a candle to warmer weather.” She pauses, briefly, thinking of the heat and sand from Jakku. “Maybe not all warmer places. But I miss the green. I miss the other colors, not just this white stuff covering everything. I miss plants, and the flowers, and seeing them grow, and all the noises and sounds that come when things just feel more … alive.”

She looks back at Poe who is looking back at her with an indecipherable expression on his face. She doesn’t have long to think about it before they get back to the base entrance, and he holds the door open for them as they make their way back to the mess, hoping to find something warm to drink.

\--

Poe and the rest of the Black Squadron get called off on a mission shortly after, and she spends most of her time with Finn and Rose. They spend the days apart – she’s usually training or with Chewie fixing the Falcon, while Finn is usually with the General, or running drills alongside the Pathfinders. Rose is mostly in and out of the hangar, spending time around the ships before running off to some other part of the base. If they’re both in the hanger at the same time, she’ll wave at Rose when their eyes catch from across the floor, but it’s not until dinner that they finally have a chance to relax and catch up. They’ll gravitate to one of their quarters afterwards, sprawl out on the floor or on the bed, and watch a film on one of their datapads.

She misses Poe more than she thought she would. She tells herself that it’s because he’s been taking the lead on their movie nights, picking out a movie that “they just must absolutely see,” which usually just leads Rose to laugh and shake her head before offering some quip about Poe’s taste in movies.

That night, Rose picks a film that’s more dramatic than the slapstick comedy or action that Poe tends to prefer. Rose cuddles up along Finn’s side, and Rey curls up next to them to watch. But throughout the movie, she can’t help but miss the way her sides hurt from laughing, or the way she and Poe will exchange insults about some high-flying piloting sequence where the ship’s controls were all wrong and the pilot should have gone down in flames instead of saving the day.

When Poe does get back, it’s in the early hours of the morning, a few hours before she gets up to start training. He sends a message to her datapad that he’s arrived safe and sound, but she hears nothing else from him until she steps into the mess hall for dinner.

She grabs her plate, fills it up with the food that half the time she still can’t believe that she just gets for free, no questions asked, and no exchanges made, before she looks for a table. She sees that Poe’s there, talking with Finn, but neither one has seemed to spot her yet. As she makes her way to the table, she can’t help but laugh as Poe’s hand flies up to smooth his hair down once, then twice. His hair doesn’t seem quite as maintained as usual, doesn’t have that same effortlessly tousled look (in a way, she suspects, and which Rose concurs with, takes more work to maintain than he’d ever admit). Instead, it’s flat on one side and flying upward on the other, and she can’t help but grin at how it looks like he just barely managed to wake up and roll out of bed before coming to the mess hall.

Finn finally looks up, and waves at her as she approaches. Poe glances at her a moment later, and his mouth stretches into a blinding smile as his eyes lock with hers, his face suddenly going from still half asleep to alert. She wants to laugh at the sudden change in his demeanor, but the sudden warmth she gets from it instead is stronger, and she just smiles back and tries to overcome the urge to avert her eyes. She tells herself she’s just being foolish, and sits down and immediately stuffs the corner of a bread roll into her mouth to give herself something else to think of instead.

Dinner passes quickly as they catch up. Poe spends some time talking about the mission he was just on, and she’s sure if she asks Jess about it, Jess would confirm her suspicions. Some of the tale is just a little too outrageous, a little too outlandish. She quirks her eyebrow at a few choice parts, and after the third or fourth time, Poe catches her look and throws his hands up and swears that’s the way it happened. She keeps an eyebrow raised, and he sends her a wink, and this time she does look away, down at her plate as she grabs the last bite from her plate and hopes he doesn’t see the blush on her cheeks.

They wander off to Poe’s quarters later, the largest of their group, even if not by much. Rose walks in a few minutes later, a small bag of food in her hands, and they huddle together on the floor. BB8 starts projecting a film on the wall, and within five minutes, she’s clutching at her sides from laughing so hard.

At some point during the movie, she glances over at Poe, who is sitting on the other side of Finn. He’s turned slightly away from the group, and he’s sketching something in a notebook sitting on his lap. She’s seen him a few times, brow furrowed in concentration as he sketches diagrams and ideas for x-wing modifications, but it’s usually on a datapad, where he can switch between screens quickly and edit things cleanly. This is the first time she’s seen him drawing on paper.

Finn catches her looking, and she figures she needs to say something before Finn gets any ideas.

“Not interested in the movie?”

Poe looks up startled, his attention pulled suddenly away from whatever he’s doing in his notebook. He pulls the notebook towards his chest a little, as Finn, who’s sitting closest to him, leans closer in an attempt to look.

“I, uh,” he stutters at first, casting about for words, “I just had an idea that I wanted to put down quickly. Before I forgot it or anything.”

She’s seen some of the ideas for modifications he’s shown her before, likes to talk and debate about their potential with him, so she perks up when she hears that he’s had an idea.

“Another mod? What is it this time,” and her mind starts racing, wondering if they might have the tools or resources on hand to implement it. “Is it for speed, or the weapons, or what?” Rose, too, looks away from the movie and towards Poe.

Poe’s eyes go wide and dart between her and Rose, and she has no idea why he suddenly looks so nervous, or why his hand slowly closes the cover of the book.

“It’s, um, it’s really nothing right now,” he stumbles. He seems flustered, she thinks, and she doesn’t know why. Suddenly his eyes dart to the wall where the movie is playing, and his voice is a bit higher pitched than normal when he says, “Oh! This is a good part!” And then he goes quiet and his eyes are so focused on the action that she knows for sure that’s he’s trying to deflect attention away from him and whatever it was he was drawing. But everyone’s gone silent now, whether from the film or from Poe’s unstated wish for people not to inquire further, so she turns back to the movie, and within minutes she’s wrapped up in it again and laughing so hard that she’s practically crying.

\--

Two days later, she’s sitting alone at a table in the mess hall, her empty plate sitting in front of her, feeling too tired to get up and hand the tray back in. She knows she should go to bed, she has to be up early tomorrow to head out on a mission with Chewie, but something tells her to stay just a few minutes longer. She sighs and brings her hand up to rub at her eyes. It morphs into a yawn, and as she opens her eyes back up, there’s Poe sliding onto the seat across from her.

“Hey, Poe,” she says in greeting, her lips twitching upwards in a faint, tired smile. Her mouth stretches in a yawn again, and when it ends, she looks back at him, as he hasn’t said anything to her yet. She sees him looking at her, an unreadable expression on his face. She’s about to question him on it when he seems to shake himself and opens the notebook in front of him, pulling out piece of loose paper before sliding it towards her.

She looks down at it for a brief moment, before glancing back at him. She sees red faintly coloring the top of his cheekbones, and there’s another look she can’t quite decipher. She looks down at the paper again, and can’t help the soft smile that forms on her face.

“I, uh,” he starts, and clears his throat. “You said how much you hated the snow because you missed seeing the plants and flowers and such growing. So, I figured maybe the next best thing would be a picture?”

She’s already tracing a fingertip lightly over the petals on the image of the flower, marveling at the bright yellow on its tips and the brownish-orange covering the inner portion. Her finger runs along the long stem, and she eyes it closely, in awe at how the plant almost seems to be coming off the page, curving towards her. She bites her lip and looks back up, and she barely has a chance to meet Poe’s eyes before he looks away.

“I know, I’m not much of an artist, but you know,” and he scoffs almost, wrinkling his nose, “just had a few minutes to kill between missions to help rebuild the Resistance and all that.”

 She’s seen him do this before, sometimes. There will be a moment, and he’ll try to deflect attention, turn it elsewhere.  For someone who always seems so open, so warm and gregarious, when things get heavier, more intense, he’ll try to soften its impact.

She doesn’t want him to do that now.

“It’s beautiful, Poe,” she says, and his eyes turn to meet hers again.

“Yeah?”

She laughs, just a soft huff of air, at how this normally cocky flyboy seems to be wanting her approval for this gift he just gave her. She’s delighted, by his smile, by the drawing, and she feels like it’s just bubbling out of her.

“Yeah, Poe. It’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen any flower like this before, and,” and she wants to say how much this means to her, how few gifts she’s been given in her life, a figurine from Rose and some candy Finn brought back for her from a mission once, the items from her home that Poe brought her when he went to Jakku, and maybe even the Falcon in a way. She can count the number of gifts she’s received on one hand, and each one means something so, so very important to her. But this drawing, done by hand and clearly with more effort than he’s just implied, she feels so very, very … warm. She just feels so warm right now, and too full of something she can’t even describe. “And I love it, Poe. Thank you.”

She looks back down at the drawing, swallowing around the lump in her throat and, if she’s blinking a little harder than usual, to tamp down on a few tears building in her eyes, well, it’s not like anyone can see them right now. Anyone but Poe at least, as she can feel his eyes on her even as she’s looking away, but she can’t bring herself to care much if he sees them, not after he’s given her this gift, a little sunshine in the dead of winter.


	3. Spring

“Stars! This place is amazing!”

Rey can barely contain her excitement, as she makes her way down the dirt lane. The air is warm, and the breeze brushes along her skin, and she feels so good after spending so much time in the bitter chill at their base. She’s so overwhelmed trying to take it all in, that she doesn’t even care about the multitudes of beings swarming past her, elbows and bags and whatnot knocking into her as the crowd pushes along. She’s too busy looking around, at the moss-covered trees that hang over the road and at the booths that line the path. There’s food in some of them, the warm, spicy smell of cooking meat and the bright, dazzling colors of the fruit making her mouth water, even though it’s been less than an hour since she last ate. There’s other booths filled with all sorts of fabric and clothing, the rich, vivid colors causing her eyes to widen in awe, wondering at the contrast with her own bland beige and grey clothes. And then there’s the booths filled with flowers and other plants that put the rest of the colors around her to shame. She pushes a little closer to those booths, the lovely scent filling her nose, and she can’t help but take several deep breaths in.

She doesn’t mean to slow down, they have a contact to meet after all, but she feels fingers tap at her elbow to urge her along.

“Sorry, Jedi, but we’re already running late,” Poe says, and she picks up the pace to keep up with him.

“I’ve never seen a place like this. It’s amazing.” She can’t help but look over her shoulder once more, at the stalls with their wares and all the beings that eagerly walk the path.

Poe grins at her, before looking over his own shoulder in the direction she had just been gazing at. “It’s one of the better markets I’ve been to, I’ll give you that.”

A few moments later they’re cutting down an alley, and all the booths disappear from her view. But the sounds of the crowd linger, and she thinks the sweet and savory smells from the booths linger on the breeze even longer.

\--

She’s seen awe in other’s eyes directed at her before. She saw it when she lifted the rocks on Crait, and when she led the Resistance members onto the Falcon. But right now, while their contact is talking with Poe, the old man stares right over Poe’s shoulder and straight at her, with a clearly awestruck expression on his face.

It’s strange. She hasn’t even done anything.  She’s never met this man before in her life, and yet he can’t seem to take his eyes off her. She tries not to squirm as his gaze makes her uncomfortable. The only comfort she can take from it is that the man doesn’t seem to necessarily want anything from her, not like the beings on Jakku who stared at the little scavenger, wanting to know what she could provide them with.

But she’s a Jedi, or at least a Force user, now. She’s not just Rey anymore, she knows. She’s also slowly becoming part-myth, part-legend, solely because of how she can wield the Force.

She wants to laugh. If this is even a smidgen of what Luke had to deal with, no wonder he wanted to avoid the public eye.

She stands there anyway. That’s part of the deal. The man is handing over millions in credits, and a data chip with information on First Order weapons. In exchange, he just wanted to see a Jedi, and maybe gain a little hope in the process.

“This can’t even begin to make things right, I know. I’ve done too much to ever face the possibility of forgiveness. But where I came from, you had to work for them, the First Order. Either in the mines, or in their factories. My own family had a bit of money, and there seemed so little hope at that time of fighting them, that I decided to leverage the money. Get in their good graces, you know, and maybe make a little something more for myself in the process.”

The man takes a deep, shaky breath in, his face pinching, before he continues. “There seemed so little hope for anything else. And then, then” and the man nods, eyes alighting once more to Rey’s face, “then we heard about you. You gave me hope. And I don’t have much longer on this plane of existence, so hopefully, “and he laughs at his own figure of speech, “hopefully, this will help you out.”

She doesn’t know what to say to this man. Dealing with people has never been her strong suit. Poe, however, is confident, and strong, and warm. He’s made this sort of speech before, extolling the virtues of freedom, the necessity of the fight, the brilliance of General Organa and the other command staff, all the way down to the other pilots of the Resistance, the skill of their technicians, the smarts of their intelligence corps, the strength of their fighters. He doesn’t give anything away that he shouldn’t, but he makes their contact, any contact, feel important to their fight, and feel the need to keep contributing, even if this time it seems like this will be their first, and last, meeting with this particular contact.

If she hadn’t seen what the First Order could do, the evil their organization was capable of, hearing Poe speak of it now would convince her to join the fight, no questions asked.

She’s a little in awe of his passion, and his dedication as he continues to speak. She knows there’s a reason that other members of the Resistance would follow him to the ends of the galaxy, and she thinks she’s watching the reason why right now. It’s impressive, and inspiring.

The warm glow she gets from hearing him talk doesn’t last much longer, as she hears her name spill from his lips. Normally she’s happy to hear it, excited to see him. But now he’s talking about her like the next great hope of the galaxy, and the other man has turned his eyes back to her.

She doesn’t know how to feel really. On one hand, hearing him essentially praise her and her abilities fills her with a certain thrill, a warm satisfaction that not only has she made herself useful, but that this man who she finds to be so genuinely impressive views her in the same way.

Then again, finding herself to be the center of attention while the other man’s eyes stay glued to her face brings back her initial feelings of uncomfortableness, but multiplied tenfold.

She’s just trying to make sure her emotions don’t show on her face, when she feels Poe’s fingers brush against her hand. She glances down quickly, and sees him reaching back, his fingers wrapping around her own, to give her hand a quick squeeze before he pulls away. Her eyes dart back to the other man’s face, and he’s still gazing at her. He doesn’t seem to have noticed the movement. She’s glad. She wants to keep that moment for herself.

Her eyes land on the side of Poe’s face as he keeps talking, trying to wrap the meeting up. She flexes her fingers slightly, still feeling the warmth of his hand lingering. But she feels more settled now than she did just a moment before, and she has to work to keep her smile concealed. He knows her well enough now. He might not have the Force, and the ability to sense her emotions through it, but he knows people, and by now, they’ve spent enough time together that she thinks he’s got a pretty good sense of her.

It’s a bit strange. There’s this other man in front of her who is in awe, and he thinks it’s because of her, but really, it’s only because of what’s he been told, the myth of the Jedi that has been passed down the generations. And then there’s this other man who might have looked at her in awe once because she rescued the Resistance at Crait. But now, now she still sees awe in his eyes, but now he knows her too, not just as the Jedi, but as Rey.

She’s not used to being known like this. There’s only a handful of people who she would say really know her. But she likes this feeling. And she wants more of it.

\--

Once the meeting ends, she practically double-times it back down the route, eager to see the market once more. She can feel Poe’s eyes on her occasionally, especially the first time she pulls ahead, cajoling him to keep up, telling him the quicker they get back to the booths, the more time they have to look around.

“How about we split up and meet back at the front entrance in twenty minutes? That should give you a few minutes to look around and grab something if you’d like, then we can head back to base?”

She’s disappointed that he won’t stick with her around the market, but she figures after the time cramped up in a small shuttle on the way to the planet and their meeting that maybe he wants a few minutes alone before they have to get back on that same small shuttle. She nods, and smiles in an effort to hide her disappoint, and is delighted to get a toothy smile in return.

She takes one last glance at her chronometer so she’d know when twenty minutes had passed and sets off. She can feel Poe’s eyes on her once more, and wonders why he’s just standing there instead of heading off to any of the stalls.

She has a handful of credits in her pouch, courtesy of Leia. She doesn’t have much experience with credits, used to being paid in portions, but the General pressed them into her hands when they were about to leave, her deep voice telling her to spend it on something nice, that the Resistance can’t really afford to pay its members, but that this is the least that she could do to express their thanks for all she has already done for them.

She knew the money probably came from Leia’s personal funds, and she had to ask Leia how exactly they work, but she didn’t see pity in her eyes when she asked. Leia was good like that.

She passes the booths filled with the beautiful clothes made of soft fabric, and the tables of flashy jewelry. She has no use for them. She sees the colorful flowers, the sweet smell once again reaching her nose, and starts walking in their direction. She’s only steps away, the proprietor looking towards her as she approaches.

She knows Leia told her to buy something for herself, but she can’t bring herself to make that particular purchase. They’re pretty, but she has no use for them, she thinks. They won’t feed her, or provide for her, or otherwise sustain her.

She sighs, deeply, and turns away once more.

She lets her nose lead her once more though, and ends up outside a stall selling bantha meat on sticks and cartons of bang corn, amongst other treats laid out on a long table. The savory, spicy meat makes her mouth water, and the rich, buttery smell of the bang corn proves irresistible as well. She gleefully exchanges the credits for the food, and as the Twi’lek selling the food bags up her purchases, she glances down at her chronometer.

With a final thank you, she practically runs back to the front entrance. She waves at Poe as she approaches, and sees him holding his own purchase encased in paper wrapping, cradled in one of his arms.

“Did you get something nice for yourself?” Poe asks, as they make their way to their ship.

“I got us some bang corn, and some spicy bantha meat kebabs, and some other things. I figured if you were hungry, we could share some of this instead of the ration packs,” she says, setting down her bags on the little shelf right inside their small ship.

Poe sets down his package next to hers and walks into the cockpit. She follows him, intending to take the co-pilot seat as he’s the commanding officer on their mission and he flew them out there. So she’s a little stunned when he takes the co-pilots seat instead and gestures for her to take the pilot’s seat. He grins at her when she falters for a minute, surprised that he’s given up the lead so easily, and then full on laughs when she practically throws herself into the pilot’s seat. She’s grinning as she flips the toggles and primes the engines for takeoff, and they work in tandem to run through the pre-flight checklist.

She’s surprised that he’s given up control on the flight back. She knows that man will take any opportunity to fly, particularly now that he’s spending more and more time in the command center. She wonders why though, but her thoughts are interrupted when he speaks again.

“Are you sure you want to share though? That looks like it could only feed three or four people, or, you know, one Rey. Did you really get enough to split?” He’s teasing her, so just before she lifts them off into the air, she sticks her tongue out at him.

“Oh, that’s mature,” he says, and promptly sticks his tongue right back out at her.

“Now that you mention it, you may be right. Guess I’ll have to eat it all by myself.”

“And I’ll be stuck with my sad ration pack, oh woe is me,” and he lays a hand against his forehead and pretends to collapse back into the seat, and she can’t help but burst out into giggles. A minute later and she takes them into hyperspace, and the ship is on autopilot until they approach their destination.

She’s glad that they’re on their way now, away from the man at their meeting who couldn’t take his eyes off her but didn’t really see her. Now that she’s on the ship again, she’s relaxed, comfortable, in a way she rarely is, even on the base surrounded by the resistance members. There’s so very few people she’s comfortable around, so few people she truly enjoys being with. After years alone, being around others can still be challenging.

But here it’s easy and relaxed. She stands and makes her way to her bags of food, motioning for Poe to follow her.

They sit on two of the passenger chairs right outside the cockpit and she places the food in the chair between them. She briefly pretends to hoard the food to herself, and he pretends to look offended, and she can’t help it anymore, she always feels like she’s smiling in his presence, and it doesn’t even feel unusual to her anymore.

“You know, it’s your food, your credits. You don’t have to share this with me, you know,” Poe says, looking at her earnestly, even as she passes him one of the kebabs.

She’s looking at the kebab, a little uncertainly. It still smells good, but not quite as mouthwatering as it did when she first bought it. Maybe they should have eaten it before take-off, and she’s so busy considering this that she almost missed his words, though she doesn’t miss the look on his face. It’s sweet, in a way. She knows that most people wouldn’t ask her to share her food, knows that they think she’s likely to stab their hands with her fork if they try to steal a bite (and she wouldn’t, unless she didn’t see them coming, and then she absolutely would), but this is Poe and …

“I know. I’m offering to share it though,” she says, considering her words. “I want you to have it. So, eat up.” She takes a giant bite of the meat to prove her point.

Poe follows her example, and practically moans as he starts chewing.

“Oh kriff, I don’t think I’ve had decent spiced meat since before joining the Resistance, this is good,” he says, his eyes still closed.

For a few seconds there, she sits stunned. She stops chewing, her eyes widening. She’s sure it wasn’t intentional, but that sound …

Oh, kriff.

She wants to hear that sound again.

His eyes slowly open, and she quickly looks away before his eyes can meet hers. She feels the heat rise in her cheeks, and she can only hope it doesn’t show on her face, or if it does, he thinks it’s just from the spiciness of the meat.

She hurriedly starts chewing her own piece again, biting into it again as soon as she swallows the first bite down. She knows he’s an attractive man, knows that to be an objective fact based on all the overheard comments and conversations on base. She knows that she personally thinks he’s an attractive man, she has eyes, and then there’s the fluttering in her stomach when she sees him, the last few months in particular have proven that point. And he’s just so kind and generous, and so damn funny …

Oh, kriff indeed.

She doesn’t know what to do with this new information that she’s just learned about herself, but she wants to desperately forget it. There’s no way someone like him could be interested in her. She’s just a nobody from Jakku, someone who has had so little human experience and interaction that she knows she still gets odd looks from people sometimes when she’s missed some sort of social cue, or proven that she’s lacked some sort of basic history or pop culture information.

She reaches over and starts to dig into the bang corn and the collection of spiced nuts she bought. She listens to Poe chatting away, as talkative as ever even with his mouth half stuffed with food, though if you asked her what he said, she wouldn’t be able to say.

He stops talking long enough to eat a handful of nuts, and she uses the opportunity to pull herself back into the conversation without giving away the fact she was distracted just moments ago.

“What did you get?” She nods towards the paper wrapped package sitting nearby on the table.

He pauses chewing, and she thinks she sees the tips of his ears go red, but it’s dim back here, so she’s not terribly sure.

She doesn’t think she wasn’t supposed to ask, doesn’t think it goes against some sort of social norm that she’s unaware of, but just in case, she says, “you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, no, it’s uh, it’s fine,” he mumbles around the mouthful of food. He swallows, and her eyes drop down to his neck for a moment. “Actually, it’s for you anyway.”

Shocked, and a little confused, she looks back to his face. He doesn’t look at her before he gets up and walks over to grab the package and sits back down with it.

“I saw you looking at them, but figured you wouldn’t get them. Figured you’d probably go for the food,” and Poe shrugs as he says that, and she shrugs too, for once not minding that she’s predictable.

“And, considering what we have for ration packs, I can’t blame you,” he continues. “But I thought you deserved something nice, too.”

He hands over the package, and she has an idea of what’s in that package. She’s gentle, but she can’t quite hide her enthusiasm when she tears into the paper wrapping, pulling it back to reveal its contents. Several flowers are lying on top of the paper, their bright blue and yellow and orange petals a kaleidoscope of colors, their stems tied together by a soft ribbon. She runs her fingers over the petals and then down one of the stems and delights in their texture.

She stares at them for a minute or two, she can’t really tell she’s so lost in the colors and the thought that someone spent their credits on her, and not on necessities, but on something pretty and frivolous that was simply for her to enjoy.

She turns and smiles at him finally. “You’re right, I was looking at them earlier, and …” she trails off, a little unsure of how exactly to say what she was feeling. Finally, when the silence stretches on just a little too long, she settles on, “Thank you, Poe. This is wonderful,” and she brings the flowers up to her nose and breathes in deeply, a sigh escaping her lips when she finally exhales.

When she opens her eyes, she definitely doesn’t miss the blush on his face this time.

“No thanks are necessary. You deserve something more than just the practical things. You should have something nice, too,” he says. “I had a few extra credits, and thought why not?”

She feels a brief twinge of hope that maybe he might feel something for her too. But he’s a nice guy, kind and generous, so maybe it’s not just her. She just doesn’t know for sure, and she doesn’t like uncertainty.

\---

It’s late when they get back to base, and only a handful of people are out in the hangar when they arrive. Still, she gently tucks away the flowers in a bag. She doesn’t want prying eyes wondering why she has flowers, even if they wouldn’t really know where she got them, until she has figured out some of these questions bouncing around in her mind.

While Poe is checking the equipment back in, she snags a small cylinder, encased on one side, from the hangar and brings it back to her room. She fills it with water, and she cuts back the stems some before setting the flowers in the water. She sits them on her little desk, pushing away pieces of scrap and tools to make room for them.

Exhaustion is settling in, and she moves quickly in her little attached ‘fresher, brushing her teeth and changing out of her work clothes. She drops heavily down onto her bed, her eyes already drooping, and curls up on her side facing her desk so that the last thing she sees before sleep takes her are her flowers.


	4. Summer

For just a little more than a standard month each year, the little planet they’re stationed on turns just the right way, the snow melts, the air warms up and ….

And it is bliss.

Rey has taken to meditating outside, practicing with her staff outside, dragging her equipment outside to clean and repair the smaller parts to fix the ships with - basically, whenever she doesn’t have to be inside, she’s outside.

She turns her face up towards the sky and lets the heat from the sun thaw out her skin and bones. She unfurls herself from her seated meditation pose and slowly walks back into the base to head to the mess hall, less than eager to leave the sunshine.

She walks in and glances around at the ranks of fighters that have expanded over the last year. The mess is full, and loud, and although she is getting more comfortable with the crowds, she still prefers the company of her friends. She sees Finn and Rose almost immediately, sitting in the corner of the room by themselves, though they don’t notice her. She’d go sit with them, but they’re so wrapped up in each other, Finn with a soppy look on his face, and a blush on Rose’s cheeks that is visible even from her vantage point. She smiles, each of them so clearly happy with the other, as she walks towards the food line, her eyes scanning back and forth for someone else to sit with.

She sees Poe sitting with the rest of Black Squadron, his hand already coming up to wave at her almost before she recognizes him. He gestures at an empty seat near him and she waves back, indicating she’ll be just a minute, relieved at having found the group already there so she could join them.

Luckily crops grow fast on the planet they’re stationed on, despite the extremely short warm season. She’s eager to try the soup made with the fresh vegetables, and she grabs two bowls of it along with a few bread rolls. The scent wafts up to her nose as she walks to the table, and she’s practically spooning up her first mouthful before she even finishes saying hello to the group.

She lets the conversation fill the air around her, listening to the group tease each other, and hurl taunts about who performed best in a recent skirmish with the First Order (and thank the gods they hadn’t lost anyone there or in any other dogfights recently). Poe finally makes some comment about how they all performed the best, and Snap throws a piece of a roll at him. She just tries not to laugh while she has a mouthful of soup, and waves at them as the rest head back to the hangar, to work on their ships with the hangar doors wide open. Apparently, she’s not the only one who hates to be stuck inside now that the weather has warmed up.

She’s ripping into the first of her two bread rolls, when she sees a plate with another roll on it being scooted into her line of vision.

She reaches out for it, but hesitates. “You sure?” She asks, hand hovering near it.

Poe pretends to ponder the question, and once it’s clear he’s teasing her, she sticks her tongue out at him and grabs for the roll, taking a large bite out of it.

When she glances at him next, he looks vaguely alarmed, so she quirks an eyebrow at him in question.

“Just so you know, I’m not the best at the Heimlich maneuver.”

She rolls her eyes at him, but slows down some, swallowing the bite of her roll before she speaks again. “Just want to finish up and get back outside. It’s too nice to be in here.”

He considers her for a moment, contemplative, and she tries not to do something embarrassing, like blush, or squirm, or tell him anything about how pretty his eyes are, or his perfect hair, or how the way he brings her flowers or saves his bread rolls for her makes her feel warm.

“You know, it’s generally not necessary to eat inside,” he says.

She rolls her eyes at him again. She’s well versed in eating outside. She did it on Jakku, did it often on Ahch-To. She’s used to it. At least here she can sit on a comfortable chair at a comfortable table and take her time eating her food (or, at least she has that option, she thinks; in practice she knows she still eats much quicker than most.)

“Why would I eat outside, when there’s an eating area set up for us? It’s better than finding some rock to sit on outside.”

Poe holds up his hands as if in surrender. “I know! But, in the right circumstances, a picnic can be nicer than eating inside.”

“A what?”

“A picnic. You know, grab some food, sandwiches or something else that’s easy to eat, stretch out on a blanket, relax and enjoy the sunshine. No rush, no worries,” he says, and okay, even that basic explanation sounds much different than what she’s come to associate with eating outside.

“I ate outside all the time in the evening, took my portion and sat in the sand to eat it. Don’t think it was ever as nice as you’re talking about.”

“So what you’re telling me is that you’ve never been on a real, true picnic,” he says, and she shrugs, and he seems to take it as a challenge. “Alright, then. I’m leaving with Snap and Kare on a mission morning after next. Once I get back, we’re going on a picnic. So, you’ve got three or four days to prepare yourself,” he says with a wink, as he takes their trays back to be cleaned.

\---

Rose sits atop a pallet next to her, while she’s head and shoulders deep into the compartment of Black One that houses the environmental controls. BB8 is next to her, plugged into the diagnostics.

She’s fixed up Black One before, done repairs on it when the ship’s usual mechanic was busy elsewhere, so when Poe had mentioned at lunch that the inside of Black One was running a little cooler than normal, she thought she’d take a look, see if it could be fixed up for him. Her job assignments and training allow her some flexibility with her time as long as the work gets done, and she knows that he’s busy with strategy sessions with the higher-ups before he leaves, and the lead mechanic is busy with more critical repairs so that Black Squadron’s ships would be ready for its mission tomorrow.

She knows that Poe likes his ships warm, the better to keep his muscles loose and him awake and alert, so she’s hoping to get it fixed the way he likes before he has to leave in the morning.

“Clamp,” she requests, holding her hand out.

Rose reaches forward to place the clamp in her hand when she asks, “what’s going on with you and Poe?”

Rey just barely manages to not fumble the clamp. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? Anyone with eyes can see there’s something going on with you two.”

“There’s nothing going on with us!” She winces as she realizes her voice sounded higher pitched than normal. That’s not going to help her case at all.

Rose laughs, and replies, teasingly. “Oh, I’m sorry. All those longing glances, and googly eyes, and banter between you two must have been something else then. You two don’t even notice when the rest of us leave the table at meals, or after game night, to give you some time alone, you’re so wrapped up in each other. And don’t think I haven’t figured out where those dried flowers in your room came from! I know you didn’t pick them here, and they suspiciously arrived right after the last mission you went on with him. And then there’s the drawing!”

Rey’s stopped working as she listens to Rose and can’t help but sigh, even if the noise is muffled inside the compartment. She doesn’t know what she’s doing with Poe, doesn’t know what he means by all of it either, if he even means anything by it at all. Maybe Rose could help her figure it out.

She makes sure her work is secure before she pulls her head out of the compartment, dropping down onto the pallet beside Rose.

“Am I that obvious?”

Rose looks at her closely, before lifting her hand up, palm down, and waggling it back and forth. “Somewhat, I guess? Mainly to me, and Finn, and the ones who know you well. I’ve seen you look at him before, but you’ll notice you’re doing it and pull back pretty quickly, you know what I mean?”

Her shoulders slump slightly, though she’s mollified somewhat my Rose’s insinuation that maybe she’s concealed her feelings from others well enough. “It’s just – I don’t know what I’m doing. Or even if there is even anything to do anything about, you know? I know I like him, I just – think he’s pretty great, right? But Rose, how do you know if someone else likes you? How did you know with Finn?”

Rose stares at her for a moment, her mouth slightly agape, before she bursts out in laughter, practically hunched over in her amusement. Rey looks back at her in astonishment for a moment, before glancing around her, both in confusion and in concern that Rose’s laughter would draw attention to their conversation.

Rose recovers quickly, stammers out, “Sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“Surprised? At what?”

“Oh, honey. You don’t know that Poe likes you? He’s the obvious one, he’s been the obvious one since the beginning. It’s only because of him that the rest of us even thought to look for your response to it. I thought maybe you weren’t interested, but then you preserved those flowers, and now they’re sitting next to your nightbloomer, and the way you started looking and acting around him. No, sweetie, the googly eyes and goofy smiles were all him.”

A flare of hope bursts through her. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. I thought you knew and were just taking your time? Rey, your affection for flowers and other green growing things, he listened to you about it, yeah? And then he gave you what little of those things that he could, right? He’s a good guy, sure, but he’s not giving others so many thoughtful gifts. He’s not bringing other people flowers, or making drawings for them, or making little detours on Jakku for just anyone. He cares about you, Rey. He wants to make you happy. He’s doing these things for you.”

She contemplates that for a minute, before another thought strikes her. “But what do I do about it? I don’t know what to do.”

Rose shrugs. “I don’t think anyone does. You talk it out, just work it out. There’s not really a play book, you know?” She reaches her hand out and takes one of Rey’s in her own. “I know this seems like some huge thing, and in a way it is, but it’s nothing to be afraid of, especially not with Poe. No matter what, he’s a decent man. And, really, you say you don’t know what to do, but it doesn’t look that way. I’ve seen the way you two talk and flirt, the way you look at each other, the way you two act and do things for each other. You’re doing just fine, Rey.”

\---

She’s sitting cross legged on the ground, about a hundred yards from the hangar bay. If she opens her eyes, she can see Snap working on his ship with Kare standing nearby, both of them talking and decompressing from the three-day mission they returned from that morning.

If she looks just past them, she can see the new Black One, the mechanics poking around its insides. It doesn’t look like they had engaged in any skirmishes, but she hasn’t seen Poe since he’s been back to ask him how it went.

She sighs, and closes her eyes again, trying to return to her meditation. She had just begun to reach out, to feel the presence of the life forms scattered across the base, when a series of inquisitive beeps broke her out of her trance. She grins, recognizing the tone of those sounds, and cracks open one eye, and almost jumps backwards.

Without realizing it, BB8 had rolled so close to her that its round body was less than an inch from her legs. The little droid was leaning forward, its optical lens peering closely at her face. She laughs as she feels herself being examined closely by it.

She leans forward, smoothing her hand along the top of his dome. “Hey little one – what brings you here?”

She listens to the the series of beeps projected her way, and furrows her brow in confusion. “Where is he? Why can’t he just meet me here?”

She doesn’t know exactly how to translate the next beeps that come from BB8, but she gets the vague sense that this might just be BB8’s version of rolling his eyes. He starts rolling away, and she stands, brushing her pants off as she begins to follow him.

He leads her into the woods, seemingly randomly, until the path leads them through a dense thicket of trees into a wide-open clearing. She spies Poe sitting, leaning against a large rock. Before she realizes it, BB8 gives one last whistle and rolls away.

Poe turns at the sound and waves her over. She slowly walks over and settles down next to him on the blanket. She runs her hand over the soft material that she sits on, breathes in the sweet smell of the grass and the earth, and feels the sun warm her skin. She glances over and spies a box, with smaller containers sitting within it.

When she glances up at Poe, he’s grinning madly, watching her face as she takes it all in.

“This is the picnic thing you were talking about?”

He nods, reaching into the box to start pulling out containers.

“Yep, although I couldn’t scrounge up a real picnic basket or anything. So, I had to make do,” he says, opening up the various containers. There’s one filled with small sandwiches, cut into triangles, and another filled with small berries, and a few more with various chips and nuts to nibble on. He then pulls out a vaguely rectangular shaped item wrapped in a foil wrapper. She doesn’t unwrap it, but she places it under her nose and sniffs, eyes widening at the deep, rich scent that she can smell even through its wrappings. Poe sees her expression just as he’s opening a thermos and pouring the liquid into two cups, and laughs.

“That’s for dessert. I promise, it’s worth the wait.”

“Where did you get all this?” It’s not that they’ve struggled to find food resources in the last few months, now that the Resistance has regained its foothold and their sources are coming out of the woodwork again, but it still surprises her to have all this in front of her, just for them.

“Some of it I picked up on the mission. You should ask Snap and Kare what they got, they were a bit more adventurous than I was. And some of it I just asked the cook for. He didn’t seem too pleased at first, but I told him it was for you, and that did the trick. He helped put the drinks and sandwiches together.”

She blinks at him in surprise. “The cook did that?”

He laughs again. “Oh c’mon, you have to realize by now how much people care about you, they’d do anything for you.” He pauses for a second that seems to stretch on, before he turns away, and coughs to clear his throat. “Besides, you probably appreciate his cooking more than most, he notices things like that.”

It reminds her of what Rose said - Poe notices things like that too, and suddenly the full breadth of how much Poe’s noticed about her, her likes and dislikes, taken an interest in her interests, paid attention to her even when they were exhausted, or scared, or hungry. She bites her lip, trying to tamp down her grin, and grows hopeful that maybe Rose was right.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” He leans forward, reaching into the box once more. He pulls out a small plant encased in a clay pot and places it before her. It’s a small cactus, eerily reminiscent of some of the species that grew on Jakku, but not quite the same either. Something familiar, but still something new.

“I saw this at the market we went through, and figured you might like it. Something to remind you of some of the nicer parts of Jakku, without all the heat and sand. You said once that the plants and flowers reminded you that there was beauty if you looked hard enough, and I thought. Well, I thought it kind of reminded me of you, here are these things surviving even in places it doesn’t seem like much can survive in, and it’s so strong and it just becomes something more, something really impressive despite the environment it came up in and . . . well, I just thought you might like it. You can add it to your collection, if you want. Or not, you can get rid of it if you don’t like it.”

She pulls the little cactus close to her, running her fingers gently along the prickly spines, and feels herself blush at the gift, or maybe it was Poe’s words, or both.

Her hope flares stronger, and she wonders if maybe he even feels half of what she feels.

She listens to him chattering about the mission, watches as he takes breaks to take bites of the food, and she wonders. She might not have a lot of experience with this particular emotion, but she does have a lot of experience of going after what she wants.

“Poe.” It comes out louder than she intended, and she watches as he hurriedly swallows a bite of food.

“Yeah?” He’s puzzled by her abrupt statement, but he waits patiently for her to continue.

Okay, so maybe she should have thought this through more, figured out what she was going to say before she got his attention.

“I was wondering if maybe, um, it’s just that – okay, let me start over,” she stutters, feeling heat rise up on her cheeks. “I don’t really know how this goes, or what I should say, and I know that you probably have a lot of options and I don’t even really know if you feel the same way and …”

Oh, she’s really karking this up. She trails off as his confusion just seems to mount, and she stops talking.

She’s seen some of the Resistance members flirt, and wonders just how they learned to do it, wonders if she could learn it. She’s seen them sneak off to darkened corners and lean in close to each other, and wonders how they got from one point to the next.

Well, she thinks, she’s always been more action than words anyway. She thinks he is too, so maybe …

She puts her hand on his cheek, and pauses, feeling the stubble rough under her palm. She thinks she likes the feeling. She inches a bit closer, watches as his eyes widen, almost feels him suck in a breath, hears the hissing of the air between his teeth.

She swallows, and wets her suddenly dry lips.

“Can I?” She asks, watching his eyes drop to her lips.

Butterflies take flight in her gut, as she nervously waits for his answer. His eyes keep flicking between her eyes and her lips, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. As the moment stretches without a response, her uncertainty grows.

She suddenly feels her stomach drop. Maybe she’s read the situation all wrong, maybe he’s trying to figure out a way to get out of this situation and let her down gently.

She starts pulling her hand away. She startles when his hand flies up, pressing her hand back to his cheek.

“Yes, yes, absolutely, yes. If you want to, that is,” he says, a flush appearing on his own cheeks. He’s practically babbling, and she can’t help the fondness she feels for him.

He’s still talking when she leans forward, pressing her lips to his, feeling a responding pressure from his own slightly chapped lips.

She leans back, pulling her hand away from his cheek and folding her hands in her lap, and thinks that maybe she should have paid attention a little more to how other people kissed, but she’s got a feeling that closely watching other people kiss would probably not be the most polite way to have learned about it. Maybe she should have talked to Rose to figure it out?

Poe still hasn’t opened his eyes yet, but there’s a slight grin on his face. Maybe it wasn’t too bad, but still the insecurity lingers.

“Okay, so I’m pretty sure that wasn’t any good, but I’m not sure exactly how that is supposed to go,” she says.

His eyes open then, a little unfocused, but his smile grows a bit wider. “No, no, that was … that was perfect.” She lets out a small noise of disbelief, and he laughs, but it’s not unkind. It’s almost comforting, even fond.

This time he leans forward, placing his hand on her cheek this time. “C’mere,” he says, and she leans forward.

This time when their lips meet, she gets it. The worst of her nerves have passed, and she’s starting to relax, and now she gets why people are sneaking off into corners, or when they return from missions why they run into their lover’s arms to get a kiss. She feels his lips move under hers, and she mimics him as best she can, tilting her head when his hand cradles her jaw to get a better position. His hand moves to the back of her head, running his fingers through her hair, and a shiver runs down her spine. She does her best to keep up, to give as good as she gets, all the while her stomach does flips and something bright and happy blossoms in her chest.

They break apart, both gasping for breath, and she realizes she practically has a death grip on his shoulders. His face is flushed, his lips red and wet, and she can’t take her eyes away from his face, feeling so overwhelmed, but so happy, so full of feeling. The way his eyes roam over her own face, she thinks maybe it’s the same for him.

He’s seemed to gather the presence of mind to talk first, which is good, considering she’s not even sure how words work at the moment.

“That was – amazing. You’re amazing,” he says, and she can’t help but roll her eyes at that. It was her first kiss, she’s pretty sure she wasn’t amazing. “No seriously, it was – I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time, and I didn’t think . . .” he trails off, a worried look shadowing his normally happy face. “I never thought that would actually ever happen. You’re amazing, you’re smart and so good and practically perfect, and you could have pretty much anyone on base. Are you sure you meant to do that with me?”

She laughs, in shock, the sound bubbling out of her, but quickly cuts herself off when she sees his face fall. “No, no, I absolutely meant to do that with you! I wanted to!”

He talks over her, “it’s okay if you wanted to, I don’t know, practice or something, but –“

“No!” She laughs again, feeling so fond of him in that moment, and a bit exasperated that he didn’t just get it, understand why she would want to kiss him. “No, I wouldn’t use you for practice or whatever. I wanted to kiss you. You’re the amazing one – you’re brave, and kind, and just so good. I mean, you’re practically the poster boy of the Resistance, and I know you could have pretty much anyone you wanted, I’ve heard the whispers, everyone loves you. What would you be doing with a scavenger from Jakku?”

He goes to protest, but she’s just feeling so good, so glad that he feels something like how she does, that maybe he’s willing to help her figure this out as they go along, that she can’t help but laugh and interrupt him.

“Poe,” she says, grinning at him.

“Yeah?”

Her eyes dart down to his lips. “You wanna kiss me again?”

“Kriff, yes.”


End file.
